Matched
by to-the-fireflies
Summary: Maggie finds that her feelings for Jimmy get in the way of her work with Stanley. (Lots of ideas, not sure which direction we will take yet). MaggiexJimmy
1. Hatching

Chapter 1: Hatching

"I was an idiot to think I had a chance with a girl like you," Jimmy Darling grunted, and just like that he left her standing alone. She fought the urge to call after him, the sound of his name at the back of her throat.

What could she even say?

It didn't matter anyway. Maggie Esmeralda hadn't realized what it meant until the second that she pulled away from Jimmy and saw his face… she didn't even know the words to fix something like this.

But maybe it was for the best, wasn't it? A kid like _that_... A girl like _her_-whatever that meant. She found herself trying to remember the way he'd said it: _a girl like you_. Wrapping her arms tight around her body, she took in a breath of pre-show air and looked over the campground. Her hands still tingled where their skin had touched, his palm beneath her fingertips, and she tried to rub the sensation away. It had felt nice, being that close.

The field was quieter than she had expected it to be with such a big crowd, but all the other performers were now pre-occupied with preparations for the show. When it was just Jimmy's shrinking figure and her shadow laid out before her feet, it was almost easy to forget the Freakshow. Shaking herself from her thoughts, Maggie set off in the opposite direction. She had been spending much too much time dwelling on Jimmy Darling.

Slipping through the striped curtains of her tent, she soon found herself collapsed on her cot. The colorful ceiling of her tent was a welcome distraction from her thoughts, and suddenly she was reminded about having to pull off another reading. Surely, she couldn't just sit around and do nothing, but she hadn't the faintest idea about how one might prepare to tell fortunes.

She threw her legs over the side of the bed, planting her feet on the ground as soon as she heard the whistle. That was his signal.

"Damn it, Stanley, you nearly stopped my heart!" Maggie exclaimed, her hand flying to her chest as she tried to calm her breath.

"Don't get so worked up, Dolly," he smirked, stalking over to her dresser. How long had he even been sitting in her chair? The fingers of his left hand fiddled with her trinkets and costume jewelry as he spoke, "You'll need to keep your head on account of your bit tonight, Mystic Miss Esmerelda. Sold out, huh? Well, fancy that." He hesitated when he came across a pack of her cigarettes. Slipping one from the carton, he turned back to approach her. "Sorry if I rattled your cage, baby, I didn't mean it, I swear. Light me?"

"What do you want? Beside my smokes that is," Maggie asked, raising her eyebrow as she found a pack of matches on her bedside table. He placed the cigarette between his lips and waited as she lit it for him. On impulse, she lit another for herself. "A good smoke will kill the pre-show jitters-"

"You never had stage-fright before."

"I'm not talking stage-fright. Get with it, Stanley, I'm not gonna be able to fool these people much longer," She snapped, smoke escaping her lips and billowing towards the false striped sky.

"You'll figure it out. You have to. We won't stick around much longer. I know you can't stand living with the freaks, and I need the money. Soon. That's why I've come to discuss our plan."

"Of course you did," Maggie rolled her eyes as she moved over to straighten the things atop her dresser. Even as a child, she had always liked things a certain way—every box of crayons was a perfectly ordered color spectrum. Selecting a necklace from her jewelry box, she inspected it in her nearby mirror, holding it up to her chest "So…? What's the story, nightingale?"

"Well, I was on my way here when I happened upon you holding claws with Lobster Boy," he laughed, mimicking pinchers with his free hand. "And, gee, I just got the best idea."

"About Jimmy?" Maggie faltered. "I thought we were after the twins."

"Implicate him and the freaks won't care what we do, he'll be as good as dead to them," Stanley punctuated his genius idea with a drag of his cigarette. "I'll slow it down for you, you get yourself jacketed to Lobster boy and plant the evidence, while I'm getting the girls taken care of. When the freaks find out, which they will, you can play the shocked, disillusioned bird and the fly the coop. This way you don't even have to get your hands dirty, princess. You're welcome."

"Wait a minute… I'm not sure. I don't know-"

Stanley suddenly jumped to his feet. "That's the plan. Now, I've got to go get myself a seat for a sold out show. Tell me, what does your crystal ball predict about our little endeavor?"

The bell Maggie had hung outside her curtain suddenly clanged, and in came Dot and Bette.

"Jimmy sent us to come get you, Miss Esmerelda-" Bette stopped when she spotted Stanley. "Oh, sir, hello," she grinned.

"I'm sorry girls, I was just bowing out," Stanley said with the tip of his hat before brushing past the twins.

"What was he doing alone in your tent?" Dot suggested. "Well, never mind, I think we can guess. How pathetic, gypsie… a man like Mr. Spencer would never give a television job to a tramp like you."

"I've got to go," Maggie mumbled, grabbing a shawl and her crystal ball before brushing past the girls. They would have said something if they had overheard… right?

Her empty hand tightened into a fist. If she were to be perfectly honest, that Dot didn't make her feel all too guilty about Stanley's plan to exploit the twins.

**A/N: Thank you so much for entertaining my silliness and reading this word vomit. It would mean the world to me to hear your thoughts/if you're interested in me bothering to continue. **

**Hero**


	2. Permeating

**Following the events of Season 4, Episode 6…**

"Good show, kid," Suzi chirped, lifting herself into the empty spot beside Maggie at the picnic table. "Gotta admit I didn't think you had it in you to entertain a full house."

Hesitating, the blonde returned her fork to her plate, having lost her appetite as she tried to advert her peripheral vision from scrutinizing the figure of the grinning half-woman. "Thanks, Suzi," she replied, knowing full well that her attempt at a smile had fallen short of her hazel eyes.

Maggie had been hoping that it would get more manageable residing with the freaks, and in a way maybe it had—there were more than a few good eggs in the bunch. In fact, Eve and Desiree had proven themselves to be rather amiable company, and she certainly found her thoughts turning to Jimmy often enough to place the itch that was growing in her fingertips. Whether or not she could admit it yet was another matter entirely. Still, Maggie couldn't manage to put herself at ease, and it surely hadn't gotten any easier to stop her gaze from lingering on their abnormalities—with the exception of the infamous Lobster Boy, of course. There was something about the infinity behind his sincere, brown eyes that made it possible to forget how his fingers seemed to melt together, a handful of sun-soaked crayons.

Returning her fork to her plate, her celebratory hotcakes mostly untouched, Maggie remembered the dimple in his left cheek as he told her to pack her bags. The way his chest felt as she played with his cotton collar. The taste of the inside of his lips.

And yet, here she was: stuck under the sickening stripes of a big top and surrounded by taunting freaks. The promise of their escape broken. It seemed as though Suzi had kept on talking while Maggie lost herself, and the other women of the show had now joined them at the table. The sound of Ma Petite's voice was what finally broke her from her minds trepidations:

"What's wrong, Miss Esmerelda? Lobster caught your tongue?" She giggled, stealing a bite from Eve's plate. _Where on earth did all those pancakes go? _

The other ladies joined in the laughter, and Maggie suddenly realized that perhaps her clandestine conference with Jimmy hadn't been all that private after all.

"Hmh?" She sputtered, trying to clear her head. "Sorry, I-I meant… what?" She could almost kick herself for acting so foolishly, so _girlish_, knowing full well she had only prolonged her own discomfort. Her only consolation was the guarantee that Dot and Bette weren't nearby to join in.

"Well, baby girl, you should know better than to think that anything can be kept secret 'round here," Desiree answered from her spot at the head of the table. Leaning back into her chair, she slipped a shawl from around her shoulders to reveal a rather low-cut neckline. Maggie swallowed; she had never been all that comfortable with overt sexuality and couldn't help but feel intimidated by the dancer's self-assured attitude. "No use lighting up the tilt sign, I caught a glimpse of you and Ethel's boy necking by his camper on my way to breakfast."

"Oh," was all she could muster before someone else jumped in.

"Jimmy's a good kid and you best treat him right," Eve added. "Lord knows he doesn't need another cube mistreating him."

It must be nice, Maggie caught herself thinking, to have so many people looking out for you. No matter how she sliced it, all Maggie had in the world was Stanley… and she had known from day one that her best interest was one of the last things on his mind. Jimmy didn't even know who she was, really. "I wouldn't dream of it," she said, but she could hear the lie echoing in the air like cicadas outside the flap of her tent at night.

Naturally, Stanley's plan haunted her. She hadn't heard from him since, but she had a feeling that Dot and Bette's sudden disappearance had everything to do with her partner in crime. She had thought she was saving Jimmy, getting him out of this miserable place and away from Stanley, but all she had done was fall right into the puppet-master's ploy.

"So… what's the dish?" Suzi baited, popping a handful of berries into her mouth. "What does he taste like?"

"What?" Maggie faltered, the Jupiter heat was nothing compared to the fire behind her cheeks.

"Your mind is really somewhere else this morning," Desiree smirked. "Come and tell us how those big ol' hands feel slipping down your—"

Luckily, Jimmy appeared at the far end of the table just in time, putting an abrupt end to the ladies' meddling gossip which quickly devolved into laughter: "What're you birds chattering about now?" He asked, good-natured as always though he didn't seem to wait for their answer. He kissed Maggie's cheek as he sat down on the bench beside her, but even his lips, so pliable and electrifying just the night before, felt distant and empty against her hot skin.

"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" Pepper cheered, her tiny fists colliding with the splintered wood of the table, and Maggie felt her stomach turn in response. Jimmy's hand reached for hers under the table and his breath grew close and heavy on the side of her neck.

"We need to talk... alone. You done?" He whispered—his very words like clouds. With her hand still wrapped tightly in his, she allowed him to lead her out of the tent and to the far side of the lake where she kicked off her shoes and waded into the murky water. It was nice, just being quiet with someone, but she couldn't help but wonder what Jimmy intended to say to her.

The silence settled over them like humidity bringing sweat to the surface of the skin, permeating. Maggie rarely kept track of the time and could no longer tell how long they had been waiting there—his body slumped against a rock on the shore as he watched her delicate fingers gather up the layers of her skirt. Gently, she swayed in the stagnant water and the ripples around her ankles became the only indication of life in the swamp. Whenever he blinked, her slight frame nearly faded from his sight—the only testimony that this was _real_ the minute disturbances on the placid surface of the pond.

He wished that she would turn to face him and she wished to feel his feet move the mud beside her own. What were merely feet between them continued to grow until it felt as if they were a world apart.

Finally he spoke, "I'm not ready to leave… not yet."

**A/N: Sorry it took me so long to continue, but… **_**finals**_**. **

**Thanks so much to ShyLittleDevil, NotMarge, and Slayer1002 for the support! It means so much!**

**I'm still not entirely sure where this is all going, but what I do know is that something I find super exciting about AHS is how much I'm intrigued by the moments the screenwriters don't show on-screen. Look forward to some more musings on Maggie/Jimmy—I have some fun ideas that I'll start in on possibly after another chapter or two, so I hope you enjoy this and stick around!**

**Feedback would be much appreciated as always. **

**Hero**


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